But on Monday, the governor told reporters that the bonds do not solve any problem because lawmakers failed to set aside money to make principal and interest payments over the 12 years the debt would be outstanding.

“We need to come up with roughly half a billion (dollars) of cuts just to be able to service a bond offering,” he said, adding that he planned to meet with legislative leaders for discussion.

Pallasch said school aid and pension payments this week will lower the bill backlog into the $15 billion range as the Dec. 31 deadline for issuing the bonds looms.

“The ball’s in their court now and we are working with them to make this happen,” he said.

Gov. Bruce Rauner doesn’t want to negotiate in the media about what actions the Legislature should take next, but he said the state budget is not balanced and there needs to be a construction bill. […]

“I don’t like to borrow to fund deficits,” Rauner said. “Borrowing for long term capital projects is actually good management. It’s actually the prudent financial thing to do. But we can get the debt service covered if we can shrink some of the spending on other things and then debt service to fund construction projects.”

Rauner announced a plan earlier this month to borrow $6 billion dollars to pay down some of the $16 billion bill backlog with debt service to be half a billion dollars each year for the next 12 years.

So let’s run up $10 billion and pay 12% a year on it? Worst money manager ever. But it gets worse. He says $500 million in cuts are needed and then he restores cuts that he already made. What a joke of a Governor.

==“Borrowing for long term capital projects is actually good management. It’s actually the prudent financial thing to do.==

Not according to Irving Fisher. In basic finance, the Fisher Separation Theorem says that the decision of what investments to make should be independent of the decision on how much of the investment should be financed by borrowing.

===“I don’t like to borrow to fund deficits,” Rauner said. “Borrowing for long term capital projects is actually good management. It’s actually the prudent financial thing to do. But we can get the debt service covered if we can shrink some of the spending on other things and then debt service to fund construction projects”.===

… says the governor yet to sign a full year’s going on 3 fiscal years he could do so.

At the rate things are going in about 20 years most of the general fund is going to go to pensions and interest past debts.

I don’t think people generally grasp how dire things are going to get in this state.

We will loom at these days fondly as the good old days.

I genuinely feel for the next generation, as they are going to be fiscally handcuffed and there is not a thing they can do about it.

Imagine a world right now in which we had to cut spending by 30-40% right now. That is what the next generation is facing as an ever increasing share of the general fund is going to go to pensions and servicing old debts.

It will be like bringing in $30 billion in revenues, and yet only being able to spend $20 of them on the states needs (when it probably needed more than $30 in the first place).

Why does Rauner seem so reluctant to pay folks back the money the state owes them? He comes up with one excuse after another and meanwhile the state could be saving millions every month but instead he continues to run up debt. In January it will be 3 years of doing his best to run the state into the ground. It’s intentional, no one could be this incompetent.

Generally speaking… People do what they perceive to further their interests. When people don’t do what seems logical to achieve their stated goal (good fiscal management, etc.), one should assume they actually have an alternative goal. The question then becomes what is that alternative goal.

Rep Harris reaptedly said $350 million was built into the budget that the Assembly approved over the veto to pay the interest on the $6 billion in borrowing. I haven’t found it and I looked, has anyone else?